“Goo goo ga joob” Where did this phrase in the song I AM THE WALRUS come from? In the blog post, “I Am the Walrus,” I read these words, “Some people speculate that Lennon got these lines from James Joyce’s long poem, Finnegans Wake.”

Like Edgar Allan Poe, James Joyce was in the grips of alcoholism for most of his life and in this same song Lennon sang, “Seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe.” Poe died in 1949 as a drunk. As a drunk he probably got kicked around the street as others tried to rob him of whatever belongings he had. Alcoholism and being addicted to drugs are very similar and in the song I AM THE WALRUS we have many references to drugs. When I think of both James Joyce and Edgar Allan Poe the Bible passage that comes to mind is Proverbs 23:29-35.

29 Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?

30 They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.

31 Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.

34 Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast.

35 They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.
I am going to take a close look at the song I AM THE WALRUS and the drug references in it and then relate it some of the verses from Proverbs 23.

by The Beatles

“See how they run like pigs from a gun, see how they fly / I’m crying”

Quick ThoughtIn an interview with Playboy magazine, John Lennon said that this line and the one before it were inspired by two different acid trips.

Deep Thought”The first line was written on one acid trip one weekend. The second line was written on the next acid trip the next weekend, and it was filled in after I met Yoko.” Just as The Beatles were the defining music group of the 1960s, acid (LCD) was the defining drug. The drug induces an altered state of perception in its users, causing distortions in physical, sensory, visual, audio, and thought processes. People sometimes feel colors and hear shapes, becoming almost synesthetic. Fixed objects seem to move or ripple, looking around causes sights to blur or leave a trail (tracers), and dull objects sparkle and shine. Some users claim to have intense religious experiences while tripping on acid. Others say that they enter other dimensions or relive their own birth.

LSD was invented accidentally by a Swedish chemist looking for a blood stimulant. It has since been used experimentally in psychotherapy to bring out repressed memories. The drug has also been used by doctors to elevate patients to a new level of self-awareness, allowing them to recognize problems that they previously denied, such as alcoholism. Although LSD was at first legal for use, it has now been banned in the US and other countries. Of course, that didn’t stop The Beatles and many other young people in the sixties and seventies from experimenting with the drug for recreational purposes. The Beatles openly admit that many of their songs were written at least in part while under the influence of LSD.

“Goo goo ga joob”

Quick ThoughtSome people speculate that Lennon got these lines from James Joyce’s long poem, Finnegans Wake, while others see them as pure gibberish.

Deep Thought James Joyce was a modernist Irish writer who was famous for his works A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, andDubliners. Some Joyce/Beatles fans have suggested (rather dubiously in our view) that “goo goo ga job” comes from part 557.7 of Finnegans Wake:Here’s the excerpt from Finnegans Wake… watch out for that famous “googoo goosth” or you’ll miss it:

cramp for Hemself and Co, Esquara, or them four hoarsemen ontheir apolkaloops, Norreys, Soothbys, Yates and Welks, and,galorybit of the sanes in hevel, there was a crick up the stirkissand when she ruz the cankle to see, galohery, downand she wenton her knees to blessersef that were knogging together like milk-juggles as if it was the wrake of the hapspurus or old KongGander O’Toole of the Mountains or his googoo goosth sheseein, sliving off over the sawdust lobby out ofthe backroom, wanter, that was everywans in turruns, in his honeymoon trim, holdingup his fingerhals, with the clookey in his fisstball, tocher of davy’s,tocher of ivileagh, for her to whisht, you sowbelly, and thewhites of his pious eyebulbs swering her to silence and coort;

In our view, the odds that John Lennon actually intended his line as a shout-out to these two obscure words in the middle of this one very long sentence in the middle of a very long and challenging experimental novel are somewhere between slim and none. But it would be kinda cool, if true!

“See how they fly like Lucy in the Sky”

Quick ThoughtThis is, of course, a nod to another Beatles hit, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” from the groundbreaking album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, released a few months before “I Am the Walrus” in 1967.

Deep Thought”Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is among the most famous of all Beatles songs. Although many fans claim that it is a song about acid (the initials spell out LSD), Lennon told an interviewer that the song is actually inspired by a drawing his son Julian brought home from grammar school:

LENNON: “My son Julian came in one day with a picture he painted about a school friend of his named Lucy. He had sketched in some stars in the sky and called it ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.’ Simple.”

INTERVIEWER: “The other images in the song weren’t drug-inspired?”

LENNON: “The images were from ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ It was Alice in the boat. She is buying an egg and it turns into Humpty Dumpty. The woman serving in the shop turns into a sheep and the next minute they are rowing in a rowing boat somewhere and I was visualizing that. There was also the image of the female who would someday come save me—a ‘girl with kaleidoscope eyes’ who would come out of the sky. It turned out to be Yoko, though I hadn’t met Yoko yet. So maybe it should be ‘Yoko in the Sky with Diamonds.'”

The two Lewis Carroll classics (Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass) were John Lennon’s favorite books of all time. It’s really not surprising that imagery from both books pops up constantly in his songs. Both “I Am the Walrus” and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” draw heavily from Carroll’s writings. Even more interesting is that Lennon repeats the Humpty Dumpty/Eggman imagery in both songs. Drug-inspired or not, it certainly seems that Lewis Carroll was very much on Lennon’s mind when he penned these lyrics.

The real Lucy who inspired the song, Lucy Richardson, came out to the press 40 years after the song was written explaining that she was, in fact, the girl behind the immortal ballad. Evidently, Julian Lennon had a crush on her in grammar school and actually dedicated several art pieces to her, including the famous picture of the girl surrounded by a starry sky.

“Semolina Pilchard”

Quick ThoughtThis is a reference to Detective Sergeant Norman Pilcher, head of the Scotland Yard Drugs Unit. He was the most-feared drug agent in Britain in the 1960s and had an obsessive craving for the spotlight. Arresting a Beatle on pot charges is a quick way to get your name in many, many newspapers.

Deep ThoughtSergeant Norman Pilcher was the head of one of Britain’s police drug squads in the late sixties. Pilcher wanted to be famous, so he hatched a plan to go after the members of the Beatles one by one. He started with the man he suspected did the most drugs, John Lennon. Lennon and Yoko Ono were tipped off that John was on Pilcher’s hit list, but it was too late. Their flat was stormed by officer/canine units. They were arrested for possession of cannabis resin and obstructing the search warrant. John was told that Yoko, who was pregnant, would be let off the hook if he pleaded guilty. So he did so and they were released. Tragically, Yoko had to be immediately rushed to the hospital, where she had a miscarriage. John later told the press that the whole thing was set up by Pilcher as a media ploy for good photo ops. The news stations were at the flat before the police even got there! When John pleaded guilty, Pilcher told him, ”Well, we’ve got it now. So it’s nothing personal …” The picture on the back of the jacket of the album Unfinished Music No. 2 — Life with the Lions is of John and Yoko as they were being dragged out of the police station. Lennon also explained that Jimi Hendrix, who’d owned the same flat before them, had left piles of drugs when he moved out. John had tried to clean up the drugs when he found out about the raid. Apparently, he wasn’t quite thorough enough, hence the incriminating resin.

“Seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe”

Quick ThoughtEdgar Allan Poe was a very famous American writer of short stories and poetry who lived during the 1800s. He was well-known for his dark, penetratingly creepy tales.

Adrian Rogers in his sermon THE BATTLE OF THE BOTTLE notes the following:

There is the sorrow factor. There’s also the contention factor. Verse 29 says, “Who has contention?” Now, the word contention means warfare, disagreement, strife, enmity. Anybody who has done any counseling, or anybody who has lived in this world of ours, knows that voice that comes out of the mouth of the bottle. Strife comes from the bottle. Arguments come from the bottle. Violence comes from the bottle. Murder comes from the bottle. As a matter of fact, Time Magazine reported that one-half of all murders are alcohol related, one half of all murders are alcohol related. Eighty percent according to statisticians, eighty percent of all crime is alcohol involved, eighty percent of all crime.

A former ambassador and congressman, Claire Booth Luce, writing on crime in U.S. News and World Report said this, “Assuming that the present growth rate of crime, alcoholism, drug taking, and commercial sex persist in 1996, America by then will be the most drunken, drug-soaked, sex-ridden, and criminal society on earth.” And yet we’re spending $600 million a year telling people, “Just drink it, drink it, drink it.”

There is the contention factor, then there’s the foolishness factor. Look again in verse 29. “Who hath babbling?” What does this babbling refer to? Have you ever listened to a drunk talk? Wouldn’t it be good if you could just video tape people and make them watch themselves later on? Wouldn’t they be ashamed of their babbling? Shakespeare said, “What fools men are to put that in their mouths that which will steal their brains away.” The foolishness factor, nothing else, just the sheer foolishness of it.

But there’s the mutilation and death factor. Look in verse 29. “Who hath wounds without a cause?” Now, pay attention. This year in America, 200,000 Americans will die as the direct result of beverage alcohol. Did that register? Did that register? Two hundred thousand will have wounds without a cause, 200,000. Now you think for a moment. We talk about the atomic bomb, and we have those people who are trying to ban the bomb and the anti-nuclear movement and so forth. We dropped those bombs on Nagasaki. We dropped those bombs or that bomb on Hiroshima. In Hiroshima, 80,000 died; 80,000 Japanese died in Hiroshima. Nagasaki, 35,000 died. Well, I want to tell you, we have the equivalent of two Hiroshimas and one Nagasaki every year in America, every year. I mean, we’re still talking about what that bomb did. I’m telling you every year in America and the bomb that’s dropped on us, we still promote it. We still laugh about it. We still drink it. It’s still featured on television.

Now, listen, people demonstrate against the Vietnam War. They said, “Well, we lost so many American boys.” In 9 years, do you know how many boys we lost? Fifty seven thousand boys, tragic indeed, in nine years, and every one of them precious to God and precious to us. But I want to tell you at the same period of time when 57,000 lost their lives in Vietnam, 2 million lost their lives here at home from King Alcohol. Where is Jane Fonda when we really need her? Huh? Where is Ralph Nader? I’d love to see Ralph Nader get on the alcohol kick, wouldn’t you? Huh? Where are these people? I mean, I’m talking about 2 million people in nine years whose lives are snuffed out. Who has wounds without cause? This year 50,000 will die in traffic-related automobile accidents, about fifty thousand fatalities. One-half of those will be alcohol-related.

Now, dear friend, if there was something else that were doing this, there’d be telethons and talkathons and radiothons and there would be societies against it. Politicians would run on a platform to do something against it, but we don’t do anything about it, no. Because we’re deceived thereby. “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.” Did you know that this week, as in every week, 400 Americans will die, 400 Americans will die because of alcohol, this week. Now, that’s about as many as can fly on a 747, a great big airplane. Suppose every week in America a 747 went down with four hundred people on it. Do you think somebody would organize to do something about it? I mean, every week a 747, there goes another one, and 400 more, 400 more killed. We don’t do a thing about it. We don’t do a thing about it. I mean, I want to tell you, the liquor people have sold us a bill of goods, haven’t they?

I want to tell you, the breweries, they are racking it in; they are bringing it in. There is the destruction factor, rules without a cause. I’ll tell you there’s another factor when we’re talking about the misery of the bottle, it’s the mental anguish factor. Verse 29 speaks of redness of eyes. He’s talking there about weeping. He’s talking there about anguish. He’s talking there about sorrow – unmitigated horror and sorrow come. These people are doing this to have a good time. Friend, when I have a good time I want to know about it the next day. I don’t want to have red eyes. The Bible says, “The blessing of the Lord, it maketh full and bringeth no sorrow with it.” May I give you a loose translation? I can have a good time being a Christian without a hangover. “The blessing of the Lord, it maketh full and addeth no sorrow with it.” Red eyes, white liver, dark brown breath, a yellow streak, a blue outlook.

There is the sorrow factor, the mental anguish factor, then there’s the health factor. Look again if you will in verses 31 and 32 of this chapter. “Look not thou upon the wine; when it is red it giveth its color in the cup, when it moves itself aright.” Look in verse 32, “At the last it biteth like a serpent and stings like an adder.” Now, what’s so bad about the serpent’s bite? He’s just got little teeth. What’s so bad about it? It’s what’s in the serpent’s bite, which is what? Poison, poison. Have you ever thought about the word intoxicated? Have you ever thought about that word? Do you know what toxic is? Do you know what toxic means? What? What is toxic? Poison! So if a man is intoxicated, he is what? Poisoned. You see, what people are doing is poisoning themselves. When a man is drunk he is poisoning himself. Have you ever thought why a man throws up when he gets drunk?

Because it’s poison, he’s got more sense in his stomach than he has in his head. His stomach says, “Hey, that’s poison, that’s poison.” He’s poisoning himself. I mean, we’re selling poison. It’s a narcotic. It affects the liver. It affects the heart. It affects the mind. It affects the muscles. It affects the digestion. People are literally poisoning themselves, and it is a major health factor in the United States.

Now, there are people who tell us alcoholism is a disease. No, it’s a sickness, not a disease. So, what’s the difference? Friend, we’re not in the habit of putting diseases in the bottles and advertising them and selling them across the counter and so forth. No, man, he’s sick, he is very sick, but dear friend, don’t call it a disease. It’s not like diphtheria. It’s not like polio. It’s not like some other kind of a disease. No, no, no, no, it is a sickness but it is a self-inflicted sickness that a person has poisoned himself, he has poisoned himself. “It bites like a serpent, it stings like an adder” – there’s the misery factor and yet, we’re told to drink it.

There’s the health factor. There’s the immorality factor. Look if you will in verse 33. “Thine eyes shall behold strange women.” Now, what does he mean by strange women? Does it mean she’s funny looking? No, no, no, no, look in verse 27. “For a whore is a deep ditch and a strange women is a narrow pit.” He’s talking about immorality. When a person drinks, restraint is taken away. Somebody made this little couplet, this little poem, Audrey Nash, I believe: Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker. Do you know what he meant by that? If you want to seduce a woman, use liquor. We all know that liquor removes restraint. Do you know what the brewer will say? The brewer and the beer barren and the distiller will say, “Now look, we don’t cause people to steal. We don’t cause people to kill. We don’t cause people to be reckless. We don’t cause people to commit immorality. We don’t cause that, alcohol doesn’t cause that, that was already in them.” I couldn’t agree more.

But you see, God has given something called restraint that is built into us. It is the alcohol that removes that restraint. It is the alcohol that removes and blurs the distinction between that which is right and that which is wrong and numbs that part of the brain and the conscience so that people will do that. But they ought to have restraints against them, to not do it, so they will kill and rape and maim and murder and steal and lie. The immorality factor. God only knows the homes that have been broken because of the immorality that has been brought about by someone whose inhibitions have been broken down through this thing called liquor.

(Francis Schaeffer below)

Francis Schaeffer while discussing THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES and Solomon’s view of life UNDER THE SUN noted that alcohol does not bring satisfaction to people and he uses Ernest Hemingway as an example:

In Ecclesiastes 1:8 he drives this home when he states, “All things are wearisome; Man is not able to tell it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, Nor is the ear filled with hearing.” Solomon is stating here the fact that there is no final satisfaction because you don’t get to the end of the thing. THERE IS NO FINAL SATISFACTION. This is related to Leonardo da Vinci’s similar search for universals and then meaning in life.

In Ecclesiastes 5:11 Solomon again pursues this theme, “When good things increase, those who consume them increase. So what is the advantage to their owners except to look on?” Doesn’t that sound modern? It is as modern as this evening. Solomon here is stating the fact there is no reaching completion in anything and this is the reason there is no final satisfaction. There is simply no place to stop. It is impossible when laying up wealth for oneself when to stop. It is impossible to have the satisfaction of completion. What do you do and the answer is to get drunk and this was not thought of in the RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KAHAYYAM:

Ecclesiastes 2:1-3

I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure. So enjoy yourself.” And behold, it too was futility. 2 I said of laughter, “It is madness,” and of pleasure, “What does it accomplish?” 3 I explored with my mind how to stimulate my body with wine while my mind was guiding me wisely, and how to take hold of folly, until I could see what good there is for the sons of men to do under heaven the few years of their lives.

You know, my Friends, with what a brave CarouseI made a Second Marriage in my house;Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.

from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Translation by Edward Fitzgerald)

A perfectly good philosophy coming out of Islam, but Solomon is not the first man that thought of it nor the last. In light of what has been presented by Solomon is the solution just to get intoxicated and black the think out? So many people have taken to alcohol and the dope which so often follows in our day. This approach is incomplete, temporary and immature. Papa Hemingway can find the champagne of Paris sufficient for a time, but one he left his youth he never found it sufficient again. He had a lifetime spent looking back to Paris and that champagne and never finding it enough. It is no solution and Solomon says so too.

The Beatles – In my Life

Here Comes The Sun – The Beatles Tribute

Not sung by George but good nonetheless!!

Francis Schaeffer’s favorite album was SGT. PEPPER”S and he said of the album “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…for a time it became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. It expressed the essence of their lives, thoughts and their feelings.” (at the 14 minute point in episode 7 of HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE? )

Lancashire rock star Jeffrey Hammond is back home and about to reveal his hidden talent for art. But first, he spoke exclusively to Barbara Waite

For a man who has played the world’s biggest venues as bass guitarist with 1970s prog rock giants Jethro Tull, Jeffrey Hammond is a surprisingly private man. In his second career as an artist he has studiously avoided the limelight and only close friends and relatives have ever seen his paintings – until now.

Lancashire Life was given an exclusive interview and the chance to see his works ahead of his first ever exhibition, to be held on the Fylde this month. It fulfils a promise to his late partner Tess who wanted him to share his distinctive paintings with a wider audience.

It is another important milestone in Jeffrey’s life. Born is Blackpool, he has come back to Lancashire where he grew up in a boarding house run by his parents in the shadow of the famous Tower.

He lived the rock star life from 1971-1975 and it all started with a chance encounter at Blackpool Grammar School. A fellow student, Ian Anderson, who had never spoken to him before said: ‘You look like a musician? What do you play?’ It was the start of a friendship that survives to this day.

The Lowry Centre is titled The bridge across communities

Ian and another student John Evans wanted to form a group and invited Jeffrey to go with them to see Johnny Breeze and the Atlantics at their local youth club. Watching as the bass player was being mobbed by girls, Jeffrey agreed to be the be group’s bass guitarist despite having no musical training. So it was music, not art, that became the consuming passion during his last years at school.

The group – then known as The Blades – practised in the front room of at John’s mother’s home. ‘We made a horrible racket but in time we progressed from the youth club to doing gigs at workingmen’s clubs in Fleetwood and throughout the Fylde eventually going further afield to Nottingham, Newcastle and Manchester,’ said Jeffrey.

With the repetition of the repertoire the early excitement waned for Jeffrey and he re-took Art A level and joined an art foundation course at Blackpool Tech while his friends kept playing and moved to London.

His tutor suggested he do a painting course, so to apply for college he had to produce a work as part of his portfolio. His picture of a midwife holding a newly-born baby was, in his words, ‘not good’ and, even after it was improved a bit by his tutor, it was still rejected. That meant he could stay in Blackpool. ‘I was thrilled to bits that I would be able stay.’

This view of Bowness is actually titled Queuing for relaxation

From an early age, Jeffrey knew he wanted to express himself but had no real idea how to go about it. Luck was on his side and he took up a place at Central St Martins College in London when one of the students dropped out.

Still feeling unsure about the move, he was persuaded by his tutor to go but ‘felt like a fish out of water’ for almost all of the three-year course. ‘The other 19 student already felt themselves to be artists, but I had no sense of direction and learned mostly from a fellow student who is still a good friend to this day.

‘It was not an auspicious start to a career, but during the last six months I felt I was getting somewhere – had found the “something” I was looking for. But what to do next?’

Fate intervened again. After failing an interview to get on a Royal Academy course and with Ian and John’s band – now called Jethro Tull – started taking off, they asked him to house-sit and do some decorating – painting of a different kind – while they toured in America.

On their return he was told: ‘You’re joining the band.’ So within a couple of months he found himself working on the hit album Aqualung and touring Scandinavia. ‘I thought I might last a month, but they were all good musicians and helped me through.’

Adopting the name Hammond-Hammond as a joke – adding in his mother’s surname before she married – he started wearing a black and white striped suit and played a matching guitar – his trademark look and a feature of staged performances of the album, Thick as a Brick.

‘It was fabulously exciting touring the world and I enjoyed it for five years, but inside I knew I wanted to paint – to learn to paint.And that’s what I have been doing all these years. Learning.

‘That stage of my life ended abruptly. I just blurted it out at a business meeting that I was leaving with no previous intention of saying it. It wasn’t the best way to handle it, but the band accepted my decision and moved on.’

By this time Jeffrey had married Mahmaz, an Iranian princess distantly related to the Shah of Persia, and the best friend of Ian Anderson’s wife. Together they set up home in Gloucestershire in a beautiful house with land which Jeffrey developed over the happy years they spent there.

He started painting, though his first attempt at a watercolour of the local view was abandoned. Initially, 90 per cent of his time was spent on the 11 acres of gardens but gradually art took the lion’s share of his time.

The couple travelled extensively, to Iran, Europe and America all documented in Jeffrey’s detailed paintings to give a narrative to their trips.

‘It took me a long while to get used to the slower pace of life after the hectic days of the band. Getting close to nature helped, but I wanted to centre myself and I knew I had to begin the long struggle to learn to paint something meaningful.

‘I started with still life where you have absolute control over everything. I was in the very fortunate position of not having to sell my works so I could develop my ideas exactly how I wanted to. I was very privileged.

‘I had to work hard to achieve the painting style I now have. I didn’t have natural talent and I wanted – still want – each painting to be a challenge, to seize a special moment, to tell a story.

Mahmaz, who came to this country to study at boarding school, was interested in the arts, but more theatre and literature and from their base they were ideally place to visit the RSC in Stratford, theatre in Malvern and Bristol, and Welsh National Opera in Cardiff.

Her untimely death and their son’s decision to move to London forced Jeffrey into another big decision. The house they’d both loved was too big for one – it was time to uproot and start again. ‘It was a huge wrench to leave, but I knew I had to do it.’

He had missed living by the seaside, so travelled from Bognor Regis around the coast right up to Anglesey to try and find a home that felt right, but without success. That is until he returned to the Fylde coast he had loved as a boy, setting up home near to his mother.

Painting in his studio, Jeffrey uses photographs of subjects he has taken which suggest a storyline to him. ‘The photographs are essentially an aide-memoire being unable to paint on the spot for the months it takes me to complete each painting.

‘At a certain point the real painting takes over and I no longer look at the photographs, as the picture is well on the way to becoming an autonomous entity and happily has a life of its own.

‘Each picture I paint demands a fresh approach. It is a matter of instinct and feeling to try to achieve what I want, technical aspects being subservient to that. I don’t take myself too seriously, but I do take painting seriously and hope some of the intended humour is seen.’ A good example of that is the fact he often paints himself in the crowd. Look closely and you might spot him.

‘To use a musical analogy I have been trying to write symphonies or operas rather than three-minute songs; a desire to have the space and time to give to a full narrative,’ he added.

While the painting has been an ever-present in his life there have been reminders of the rock stars days. Seven years ago group leader Ian Anderson travelled to Blackpool to unveil a plaque presented by the Performing Rights Society for Music, commemorating the debut gig of his first band The Blades.

Jeffrey, joined by early fans, attended the ceremony as the plaque was unveiled at Holy Family Church Hall, Links Road, North Shore – life coming full circle.

It was a poignant evening for Jeffrey who had found happiness with a new partner Tess, and his assured paintings show an impressive mastery that he would have hardly imagined during those early music days.

She pressed Jeffrey to organise a public showing of his work as she felt people should see his paintings, but unfortunately she died before the exhibition was organised.

It is her legacy that a small selection of his work is now going on show at the Fylde Gallery in Lytham Booths from November 3 for four weeks. He’s called it ‘All the world’s a stage’ a quote from Shakespeare’s As You Like It. He is certainly a man who has played many parts in his time.

Tull factfile

Ian Anderson, flautist and songwriter, lives in the south of England and is still recording and touring under his own name.

John Evan (correct), keyboards, had his own construction company after he left the band and now lives in Australia.

Barrie Barlow, drummer, worked with Robert Plant and Jimmy page after the band broke up and is still involved in music.

Jeffrey played on Aqualung (1971),Thick as a Brick and Living in the Past (1972), A Passion Play (1973), War Child (1974), Minstrel in the Gallery (1975)

Jeffrey Hammond (born 30 July 1946) sometimes credited as Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond, is an artist, musician, and former bass guitar player for the progressive rock band Jethro Tull.[1]

Hammond adopted the name “Hammond-Hammond” as a joke, since both his father’s name and mother’s maiden name were the same.[2] He also joked in interviews that his mother defiantly chose to keep her maiden name, just like Eleanor Roosevelt.

Contents

One of several band members from Blackpool, England, he met band leader Ian Anderson in school when he was 17 years old, eventually joining a band with Anderson and future Jethro Tull members John Evan and Barriemore Barlow. After leaving Grammar School, he opted to study painting rather than continue with music, but he was convinced to join Jethro Tull in January 1971. Before joining the band as a performer, Hammond appears to have spent much time with the band in the background. Ian Anderson wrote songs about his friend’s idiosyncrasies, of which the best known are “A Song for Jeffrey” (This Was), “Jeffrey Goes to Leicester Square” (Stand Up) and “For Michael Collins, Jeffrey and Me” (Benefit). Introducing the first song, in the days before Hammond joined the band, Anderson would portray him in slightly condescending terms as someone with emotional problems who lost his way easily, as described in the first line of the song. His eventual appearance as a band member, therefore, was something of a surprise.[citation needed] Hammond is also namechecked in the lyrics of the Benefit track, “Inside”.

Hammond is credited with creating the “claghorn”, a hybrid instrument. He took the mouthpiece and bell from a toy saxophone and attached them to the body of a flute. The result can be heard on the track “Dharma for One” on the album This Was.

During the time of Tull’s dramatic stage costumes, Jeffrey started wearing a black and white striped suit and played a matching bass guitar, and this became his trademark and a feature of Tull’s Thick as a Brick stage performance. Hammond narrated the surreal piece “The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles” on the album A Passion Play, and the related short film. He also received credit, along with Anderson and John Evan, for writing the piece.

Hammond burned the suit in December 1975 upon his departure from the band.[3] According to Ian Anderson’s sleevenotes for the 2002 reissue of Tull’s Minstrel in the Gallery, Hammond “returned to his first love, painting, and put down his bass guitar, never to play again.”[4] Hammond’s replacement as bass player was John Glascock, a professional musician.

He made one last attempt to re-join Jethro Tull in the mid-80’s, as told by Ian Anderson during Alan Freeman’s Friday Rock Show in March 1988, while providing comments for the broadcast of Tull’s show at Hammersmith Odeon which Capital Radio was airing. According to Anderson, “Jeffrey was almost about to re-join the band”, but despite one audition being made with the band, the bass player declared himself unable to play the rather difficult music of Jethro Tull and decided to give up.

Hammond attended Jethro Tull’s 25th anniversary reunion party in 1994. He participated in an interview, along with Ian Anderson and Martin Barre, that was featured as a bonus track on the 1997 reissue of Thick as a Brick.